One Last Stop
by Bleach-ed-Na-tsu
Summary: They had made a deal, long ago. Should a disaster happen and they be separated, they were to gather in three places. It had been so long, they had been travelling for so long. Hayato and the other guardians had been traveling for an endless time. But they had one final place to check for their sky. Pintrest inspired prompt. Rated for caution. Apocalypse AU,


One Last Stop.

 **Summary:** They had made a deal, long ago. Should a disaster happen and they be separated, they were to gather in three places. It had been so long, they had been travelling for so long. Hayato and the other guardians had been traveling for an endless time. But they had one final place to check for their sky. Pintrest inspired prompt.

* * *

Breaths pant harshly in the cold air, bright white clouds against the green background of trees too desolate to be shaped and planted by man.

"Get back here!" the voice was harsh, garbled with anger. The scent of dying will permeated the air, and though the sweet anesthetic of a sky coated the area –trying to harmonize other users to deep sleep –there were tangs of other flames scoping the area.

Scrambling through gravel and crashing through branches, a young man ignores the burns on his face and arms. He had to. He had to run. His gun had few bullets left, and the clips under his shirts were not going to last long if he was careless.

"I need to get home." Brown eyes flash orange in the gloom even as bullets continue to rain down and shouts splatter the air scented with flames. A hand pressed to the wound in his stomach, cussing out a sob when the blood continued to flow through cold fingers.

* * *

Hayato was the eye of the storm, at thirty one. He even gave Fon a run for his money at this point. Only family tragedy could bring out the fables hurricane from his core, but that isn't what they wer dealing with when Hayato had found himself alone. No, he was dealing with the end of the world, he was on a mission when the warnings went out, when the flame-bond that kept each guardian connected had strained and near-enough snapped.

All the guardians were on missions when the world ended. Each of the guardians and even Tsuna himself had been apart when news broadcasts stopped, and the world realised that this wasn't a fantasy novel, or a stupid TV series.

The End of the Earth had brought out this chilly silence in Hayato, his eyes had taken on a solid red and he had acted. He hunkered down to wait out the crashing, packed a bag, stole and killed and fought to live when the inevitable chaos erupted in the big cities. He kept himself healthy so that he could start running.

Running where? Running back to his sky, and the elements that filled it of course.

It never failed to amuse and irritate the guardians, just how loyal Takeshi was to Tsuna. He was second only to Hayato in open loyalty, and as such it was Takeshi who'd managed to find Hayato first. He'd been coated in blood from head to toe, a few streaks turned almost black as they painted his skin. His sword was tired to his hand –useless and broken, he'd done all he could to keep moving –when he tumbled across Hayato.

It was testament to how close that the guardians had grown over their almost sixteen years together that Takeshi's innate killing skills didn't tear through Hayato when the man had touched the delirious man.

Kyouya had simple walked into camp calmly one evening some two and a half months after the end of the world, but his eyes were lit. He had been hunting down the ones who'd tried to scatter Vongola, the rule breakers, the pathetic scraps of humanity who took advantage of the world ending. Hayato could taste the ash of his fury in the air as Kyouya practically tackled Takeshi and Hayato out of the path of a bullet for this skulls.

His fury had not stopped until Rolls spikes leveled the town they had been squatting in. It was one thing for desperate people to threaten and then walk away in a time of crisis like this –because the Earth could only be called Crisis now, made of hoards and piles of bodies and nuclear fallout –but it was another thing entirely to try to end Kyouya's pack when he was standing there.

It was pretty often that you say Mukuro panic, especially if you knew what to look for. The guardians knew panic in the male mist, when he had appeared, in a whisper of a dream they had known he was beyond panic. Still, the three men had packed up as soon as morning broke to find Mukuro, exhausted and bleeding in some rundown bunker at the edge of the city they were skulking through. Panic settled to exhaustion when he was surrounded by bodies he recognized, final he could sleep.

Because Mukuro knew how dangerous it was for him to be away from Chrome, let alone to be running on his own through refugee camps and mafia strong-holds. To finally be able to sleep, knowing he was protected, allowed him to fill Chrome with his flames, and eventually lead the group to finding her.

As it turned out, Mukuro had been found just in time. Chrome had gotten good at being separated from Mukuro at this point. Her organs had been replaced years ago, but she still used illusions to stop any and all rejection she faced. But she still needed medication, and good food, and proper sleep to keep everything running smoothly.

Three months on the run, as a women alone in this new world that forgot that rape was a crime, and remembered a time –vividly –where the weak could make a quick buck in a back alley. She had felt the strain on her flames, starved from the lack of harmony (literal harmony, because Tsuna and the guardians fed off each other's flames at this point in their lives) she knew she wouldn't last another month if she didn't hurry. Feeling Takeshi's, Hayato's, Mukuro's, and even Kyouya's arms around her when she had found them again had brought sobs to her lips, and tears to their eyes.

Lambo was not stupid, not when he was already in his twenties at the point of fall out. He had been about to celebrate his twenty first birthday when the world had ended, and almost celebrating his twenty-second when they'd all be separated. So he was far from stupid, and he knew how to hide. So that's what he did. He cut his hair, he smeared his tattoos and birth marks with mud and dye, he removed all notes that he was a Bovino, all evidence that he was a Sawada, and made sure that the only ones who would ever know that he was a lightning were the ones who died by his flames.

Still, twenty two or not, as soon as he saw that flash of silver as Hayato lead the others through town, as soon as he saw the tall drink of a mist, and felt the blood-fury of a cloud roll through before him he hadn't cared that he was in the open, suddenly he was Lambo, Sawada, Bovino, and Tsuna's little Lightning Brother again. He crashed head long and took four of the guardians to the ground when he greeted them again. People still feared the lightning storm that his joys had brought to the sky, the refugee camp had whispered that the nuclear storms had gotten worse as punishment for thinking that they could survive the earth at war with herself.

Ryohei had stumbled into their camp one evening, almost four months after they'd been scattered to the winds. The guardians had almost jumped him, when he stumbled in. They were feral at this point, seething and frothing from all the fighting. But thank the gods that Kyouya was practically a blood hound, because he had managed to pick up the flicker of flames in Ryohei before Mukuro or Lambo could fry the man.

Ryohei had almost exhausted his flames to search for the guardians. Running on a constant stream of synthesis, he had hunted out the familiar flames of his family. He had slept for three whole days before he'd tackled the guardians in intimate hugs to make sure they were real and that he hadn't actually kicked the bucket.

And Tsuna….Tsuna had been missing for these long six months. The FallOut had brought the mafia out in hordes, and Tsuna had been their target. They'd managed to stay together as the earth shattered and nuclear missiles erupted from the crust. They managed to stay close and safe for almost six months into the end of the world. They'd managed some normalcy, they'd managed to organize their famiglia and get supplies out to the towns they ruled over. But six months came and went quickly, and then the mafia had come.

Tsuna had been separated, thrown to the winds with Reborn at his back, the Guardians had scattered in groups, desperate to have Tsuna with them, but more desperate to just _live_ long enough to get back to each other again one day

So even while Lambo and Hayato had headed north, and Ryohei and Chrome and Mukuro had headed east, Kyouya sprinted to the West in a dizzying storm of need to be back with their sky, they had all known where to go. They'd had made promises long ago in the quiet of the shared living room.

* * *

 _Hayato could remember it, in fact, all the guardians still had clenched stomachs and goosebumps from that evening in Tsuna's office some eight years ago._

 _His eyes had been stained glass, and his voice far away. He hadn't seemed happy, and his intuition had thrummed in their connected flames._

" _When the world ends," Tsuna had started, curled up in the middle of them all drinking Horlicks to sooth his insomnia, and none questioned what he meant. "we need to promise to get back together. No matter what, you have to promise me that you will do all you can to get back together."_

" _But Tsuna-nii, there's no way we'd be apart if we knew the world was ending." Lambo had been pressed in Tsuna's lap, too big at almost eighteen to be doing that, but no one argued with their child._

 _And Tsuna had smiled, his stain-glass eyes suddenly shining with rain on the glass. "But we will be, so you have to promise me that we will meet up. Promise me that we will fight to be together at the end of the world."_

 _Kyouya's voice rumbled then. "Nothing will break up our pride, Tsunayoshi."_

" _Just tell us where to go." Chrome had whispered, her hand finding Tsuna's in the nest of bodies and blankets._

" _We'll always be there, Tsuna." Ryohei had confirmed and the glass eyes warmed to the molten –living –concoction that shows Tsuna's resolve and not his fear._

" _Okay. We will meet at three places. Three bases we never use."_

 _And that had started a whirlwind of planning and late night conversations. No one outside the Guardians learnt of this plan, and though they loathed leaving their family and friends out of the planning they knew they were chasing time, time that had a head start. If they managed to find friends they'd take them along, but Tsuna –nor any of the guardians –could risk losing even one of themselves, and bringing others into this intimate fold risked just that._

* * *

And boy had the world ended in a spectacular light show eight years after Tsuna had predicted it.

The world had been heating rapidly, but cooling all the same. The poles had been roaring and trying to flip, but as usual these occurrences were ignored. The animals had all headed inland, ignoring all preconceived knowledge of their migrations and the food chain. They'd killed people in their haste, and been shot for it.

It panicked people, obviously. Religious called for mass suicides and believers names the end of all days.

But no one had time to think, or plan, even those who had been preparing since 2012 had no time.

Because eruptions started it, and massive storms. None of the guardians knew who, but some country had set off their nukes, and it had started a shit-storm of 'he-said-she-said' as more rained across countries that had once been friends.

Hayato figured that it was the earth destabilising that released the missiles under her crust. But all that was of little consequence when the entire fucking planet was coming apart at the seams.

Not for the first time, all the guardians thanked the good graces that they'd been in Norther Italy when they had been separated, because all the bases were close together, all the sanctuaries were far apart, but close enough that they could walk it if they needed to.

Even scattered, they'd ended up finding their way through ruined towns and hoards of the desperate.

The three groups had come back together and started towards the bases. They searched, all along the way, for the sky that had been missing. They knew he was alive –they could feel it in their bones in a way that they'd never be able to explain to a non-flame –but they also could not tell if he was living, or dying.

Exactly a year and a half after the end of the world, seven months after the mafia hunted them and scattered them, and two months after finding each-other for a _second_ time in this FUBAR'd satiation, the guardians sans Tsuna came to Austria.

And there's the door. The third door. Sealed by the Vongola so that only current flames could open it. Only a sky, or all the elements could open these doors.

Suddenly Hayato's mouth was dry when his flames ignited, and the others followed his lead with git teeth.

Three doors in almost double the months.

One in France on the mountain so far away that it had taken them two months to get there. Empty. The walls and roof caved in in places and filled with snow. After the FallOut earthquakes were prevalent and ruined all infrastructure along the fault lines and far away from them. There had been no sign of Tsuna there. No sign that anyone had even touched the walls since before the FallOut. The guardians had restocked, and rested for a few weeks, but then they had moved on.

On the wall they burnt an array of their flames, fresh and coloured like enamel as they melted the special stone. If Tsuna passed through here after them, he'd know they were alive and had moved on. G-writings were still only known between the guardians, no other enemy would know what had been said in the melted stone.

A second in Switzerland, and it had been safe enough. However it had been horded, empty of all useful elements and foods. The door had been blown open, and so even if they had found Tsuna within the walls they would not have stayed.

But there had been a sign for them, big and bright splashed across the wall in the ruined living room. It looked like a phoenix, and each guardians who had seen it had felt reborn. Sky flames had melted the same stone to an amber mural of letters and meanings. _"I am moving on. I can't stay. Not safe."_ The wall was splashed with blood –long since dried now –and the Guardians knew that Tsun was safe but hunted. Safe, hunted, and alone.

The guardians didn't restock here, and they didn't stay the night. They left with Tsuna's message at their backs. _"I miss you."_

And now they were in Austria. The final base hidden deep within a sanctuary, and was technically illegal. Hidden even from Vongola records, this base had been built recently the strongest and most modern base. Tsuna had it commissioned, and the minds of the workers wiped til they didn't knew they'd had a job at all. Tsuna had paid them in round-about upside down ways, but he hadn't cared. This base was their last hope.

The flames that opened these steel, hidden doors, were the brightest.

Hayato is the first through the door. He had long since taken that position, he had long since decided that the least he could do for Tsuna….should, should they never find him, is protect the others. So he is the first through the door.

The base is dusty from misuse, an ancient base compared to the others. There are no collapsed walls here, no mist from the grounds above. It had always been the most solid base after all, it had to be.

It was their last resort, after all.

"It seems quiet." Takeshi whispered beside Hayato. And Hayato knew that Takeshi was trying to soften the blow should the room be empty. Hayato appreciated it somewhere in the back of his mind, but right now all he could do was push his flames out almost viciously, searching for a response. Searching for some hint that he was here.

There was a kitchen and attached dining room to the left of the door, and hackles raised when they spied the used cup on the table, and the cleaning supplies in the kitchen. They could tell it was new, and a growl built in their throat.

It shouldn't be possible for an outsider to find their base, but it wasn't impossible either. Especially not in this desperate world.

Hayato pushed forward, pulling aside doors as he and Kyouya bypassed the dining room, entering the living room on the right, and they could see glass doors at the end of the room and a hidden room past it.

Takeshi and Ryohei went through the dining room, stalking slowly and quiet for once as they approached the hidden room. Lambo, Mukuro, and Chrome held back, flames dancing in their hands ready to strike should they be ambushed.

The others had guns up and flames simmering, there was no guarantee that there was only one person here after all.

Hayato pulled the glass door aside with a soft thud. Quick to have his gun trained on the solitary figure curled in the pile of blankets and giant pillows.

A sob breaks from Hayato's lips and his knees hit the ground. Around him similar reactions are occurring in a wave of emotion. Chrome and Lambo openly weep, quickly heading towards the figure.

Because sleeping in a pile of pillows, his face streaked with mud and old blood, is Tsuna. His hand grips the gun that Reborn had shoved into his hands when they had all run those months ago.

And he was breathing.

They didn't have to go any further. Even if the world trashed itself and they were the last ones left, it wouldn't matter. They'd made it to the last stop they'd ever need to make. Because they were back together. Yes they were missing friends, and family. Yes they were still being hunted, because the world worried that the Decimo would come back stronger. Of anyone, Tsuna was the one that the world feared would bring peace in this world of turmoil. The mafia was banking on the desperate people left in the wake of the FallOut.

But it wouldn't matter. They could all fuck themselves, the Guardians had half a mind to covet Tsuna now that they finally had him back. Because they finally had him back.


End file.
